Somewhere Over The Rainbow
by Slittlej
Summary: She and he, an unlikely pair? As 'they' say, "Only time will tell. Anana and Sergio. Uh, huh. I'm one of them—a shipper!


"I killed one of them." He'd killed one of their best, one of their brightest researchers of the CDC personnel. The veterinary pathologist who'd been no nonsense, through and through. Who might have unraveled the mystery of the arcane virus all by herself. If her life had not been snuffed out. He had destroyed Dr. Doreen Boyle and her findings along with her. His reason? Military instincts had overridden any sense of decency. He had his agenda, leaving no room for, 'live and let live,' which was never Ilaria's policy. Big pharma pulled no punches. Their mission statement sounded altruistic, but that was all it was. High-sounding, with absolutely no substance.

Their clamping down with an iron fist on what had gone wrong here was responsible for the pandemonium now reigning at Artic BioSystems.

Injection with the very virus Doreen had labored to figure out had taken irony to a new level of diabolical height. He had chosen to live with that. What else would he choose to live with, now that his being a loose cannon suddenly described him best?

Anana, gloating, because she was with this murderous man, ignoring Tulok's injunction, forbidding her to associate with this untrustworthy 'outsider,' laughed. She possessed strong, stout laughter. As if Sergio was telling her something unthinkable? Not in his job description? Right. He was cutthroat, a career soldier. Expert at what he did. She knew what he was the first time she'd laid eyes on him. Those hard eyes had told her all she needed to know. She had not shrunk from, nor had she backed down from him.

Lately, his affecting eyes were not as hard, not as cynical. They held a tad more warmth…and something else she might be imagining she saw in them whenever he looked at her a little longer than he should.

"Only one?" She embraced him, literally and figuratively. Laughing again, she taunted with a hiss, "Assassin."

The snort Sergio let out was deafening. "Don't get smart." Roughly, intent on possessing, he pulled her against himself into a headlock. Her head banged against the slab of taut muscles referred to as his chest. With playful intention, he buried his lips into her thicket of flowing hair.

"But that's what you like about me. I _am_ smart. Smarter than you thought. Smarter than you could've ever imagined." Anana growled right back when Sergio did. His grumble was thunder, rolling across the Iowan plains at the end of a blistering summer day. Her rumble was the indomitable purr of a lioness after a kill on a parched savannah. "And tough. Maybe even tougher than you."

"Dream on. I let you win," Sergio chided, his eyes alive with mischief. A murdering opportunist and a liar too; Balleseros was quite the accomplished ne'er-do-well. His handsome face didn't hurt his chances either. There was no shame in her having bested Sergio. Even Tulok met his match in his sister, numerous times. Anana had been arm wrestling since before she could walk. Miksa had taught her with Tulok being the loser ever since. Now Sergio was added to that list.

"Ha! No way!" Anana was no dupe, resiliently impervious to the Latin's roguish ways. With his scruffy growth of facial hair, he oozed charm, but she knew that behind that lay longing, an emptiness she wanted to fill only if he decided she should.

"Way," he badgered. "Total way." He felt a rematch coming on. His right leg swung across her legs while his left completed the knot. "Said the spider to the fly." Skillfully, with natural, nimble aplomb, Anana wriggled free of his aggressive lockdown. "Whoa! You're one healthy challenger." Anana had him pinned down, her right forearm wedged into his neck, somewhat cutting off his wind. Grinning from ear to ear, like a doofus, Sergio dove his hand into her hair, forcing her to lie still, and play nice. Was that challenge he saw glistening in her often inscrutable eyes? "Anytime you say."

"Later," she whispered against his neck, rocking against him. "Right before you leave."

Her rebuff stung. Those penetrating eyes of hers stripping away thick layers of pretense filled him with remorse. Erring on the side of clueless, he sputtered, "What are you talking about?" She was good. Very, very good, too good for what he was. Was that why he had allowed himself to get this caught up? His decision to get involved was unwise, but right now, that made no difference at all. None at all. "Who says I'm going anywhere?"

He had the look, which she recognized clearly, guessing that he must have overheard the heated exchange she'd had with hard-core, intransigent Tulok. "_I _say. You've done what you can for us." She left herself out of it. "Risked your life." Her breath hitched, as did his. She lay stiffly in his arms now as he imagined what was coming. "It's impossible." Resignation rang clearly like a death knell in her soft voice. "Turning your back on…on…" What was she really trying to say? He would stay, be hers? Forever? This was the North Pole, not never, never land. He was a mystery, incarnate. Not the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Her grateful people trusted him, but not her brother, who'd been born with trust issues. But, not his fault. Hardship often did that to unwitting, desperate people. Her people. "Impossible," Anana muttered again. The yawning chasm separating them widened before her, elongating the unbridgeable.

"So…let me guess," Sergio indulged, hugging her tighter, nibbling his way down her warm, inviting neck. Irascible Constance, the deviant, had been a hook-up, one messy hot mess. Anana, Siren of the North, was the rising and setting of the sun. She was Earth, Wind and Fire, fire most of all. She played immune to his tender ministrations as though she were made of steel. "You're kissing me off because I'm not Inuit enough for your bro'?" he protested.

"This isn't a Harlequin romance. I'm not—"

"Hey, you know about those?" Sergio spontaneously bantered. His arm that was currently free snaked around Anana's supple waist. His probing fingers fanned out, digging deeply into her thermal-protected body.

"We do have books up here, y'know. GI-Joe. All kinds," she sniped, already missing this. She thought about this 'thing' they had started, pausing for a moment. "I was about to say, I'm not Pocahontas."

"Ah…yes, and no." He tapped the end of her nose. "You're so much more animated than some old Disney sketched character."

"Pocahontas was not created by Disney, genius." Anana glowered; Sergio chuckled, mugging her sullen expression. She needled, "Captain John Smith? Jamestown? Ever heard of him? That colony?" Anana smirked more brazenly than Sergio. She was hilarious, he thought. Hilarious and gorgeous. They didn't make many like her anymore these days. "Not much of a history buff are you?"

"I think we're making some pretty amazing history right now. Princess Leia. Don't you?" He sniggered shamelessly. "I know one thing. You and Poca have a lot in common. As the story goes, she threw herself across his body to save him from death at the hands of her, let's say, restive tribal folk." He slid his hand along her sturdy right hip, a smooth trip. "She's got nothing on you. An." Munching on the helix of Anana's ear, he heard her drawn out sigh escape. "Trust me—" His hand over her toned belly pressed in strongly against it.

She did. Regardless of how foolish that might be. She'd keep right on trusting him no matter what, despite Tulok's effortless negativity and inflexible distrust. And her own divided heart, so deeply torn. "I do."

"You sound a mite iffy, but, I'll accept that. So, good. Then that's settled. I'm not going anywhere." He kissed her ear's silken helix this time and breathily whispered, "But if, let's say hypothetically, that I need to go off for a little while. Would you trust that I'd come back?"

"Yes." Not a hint of reservation in her voice, her tone emphatic. Her resolve melding with his.

"Would you come with me? If I asked you to? Provided we make it out of this…chaos."

She thought about what his asking her to go with him would mean. What she'd be leaving behind. Could she? Could she say goodbye to all she'd known her entire life to be with this man? This slayer of innocents as well as the guilty? Turning his face, which she held in the palm of her tremulous hand, towards herself, she appealed, "You'd make me choose?"

"Make you? I don't think so. A woman like you?" No, that wasn't what he was asking. Sergio vacillated then, testing himself, weighing himself with what she was becoming to him, in her unwavering eyes. "Could you choose?"

Anana said nothing for a long time, as though mute, continuing to listen to him breathe. She thought back, recalling how she had stitched him up. How careful she'd been, he not flinching, nor caterwauling in agony largely because he'd been out cold. She saw the blood again, the gore which had stained her hands, her clothing. When she finally spoke, thinking with clarity, her reply was more a croak than a definitive answer.

"I can." She fingered his face as though seeing him again for the first time. "What is it you really want?"

His fingers feistily tangled with hers. He held her hand, fiercely squeezing, not about to let go. "You. It's you I want." He caressed each not-so-delicate knuckle. Sounding dreamy, far removed from this turbulent, dangerous situation, Sergio staked, "It's you I'll always want. I could stay up here with you. Be with you. For as long as you want." He sighed, then smiled. "Of course we have to survive, first."

Their lips crashed hungrily against each other's like wind-driven breakers battering a beachhead. As with all storms, the tempest abated. Calm gradually returned, washing over them like gentle waves upon a shore at peace, a haven.


End file.
